Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye is the DG of the Ghana Health Service
• Ghana has taken delivery of its first batch of 177,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
• The GHS warns against plans by people who have already taken the AstraZeneca vaccine to also take the Johnson & Johnson doses
• The government is to receive another batch of AstraZeneca vaccines in September
Persons who have already been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine but are intending to present themselves for inoculation with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been strongly advised against it.
The Ghana Health Service says any such attempts could affect such persons medically, placing their lives at great risk.
According to Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the GHS Director-General, there is not yet any evidence that shows that such a mixture will not be detrimental to a person’s metabolism and until such a time, such individuals should be properly guided, reports myjoyonline.com.
“We have a mechanism of checking on how we ensure that we are giving to those who are qualified. I believe that if someone’s intention is to cheat, by telling them how we intend to check, will make it difficult for us to check, but we don’t have enough evidence for the safety of mixing vaccines and in terms of what benefits you get,” he explained.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye added that the country is to receive, in batches, 16.9 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines to augment the numbers that have already been vaccinated in the country.
Already, on August 7, the country took delivery of the first batch of 177,600 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine which is coming from the Africa Union’s African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT), the report added.
“This is just the first of many tranches that will be coming in. This is a vaccine that is being shared across the world. We know that for the J & J, our stock of what we have secured is about 16.9 million doses.
“They’d be coming from time to time and very soon we’d get a few more tranches,” he added.
In the meantime, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye has indicated that the country will receive its next batch of AstraZeneca vaccines in early September.
“Early next month, we will have AstraZeneca for the second dose. The time does not depend only on the Ghana Health Service but it depends on the supplier, availability of transportation to bring it in here.
“When all those things are put in place, we’d get to know the date of arrival. We should have AstraZeneca next month,” he said.
